Chapter Eight

Catherine’s uncle stood at the top of the stairs when she entered. He didn’t nod or greet her, just watched with his awful, narrowed eyes as she made her way past him down the hallway and entered her bedroom. She paced, uncomfortable with the hold her uncle had on them all. How could she live with her family name, knowing what she did? It was time to talk to her mother.

She exited through the servants’ panel and made her way down the narrow, drafty hallway to her mother’s room. She slid the panel aside to an angry uncle, bearing down on her mother.

“Leave her alone, Uncle.” She wanted this man gone from their lives.

They turned to her, a moment of shock on his face, great lines of pain on her mother’s. She said, “She deserves to know, Ethan.”

“So she can run and tell all the family secrets to her new lover?” He turned on her. “How could you spend time with them? Have you no sense of loyalty, of family honor?”

“I know of no reason not to spend time with the Salsburys. Unless you are addressing the fact that my own father blackmailed the former duke into staying silent in his pursuit of my mother?”

She regretted her harsh delivery as soon as she heard her mother’s gasp. “You know this?”

Catherine rushed to her mother, bearing her weight until she sat in the chair by the fire. “Yes, Mother, and you know it too, don’t you?”

She whispered her response. “I suspected.” She clung to Catherine. “Do you think me a coward?”

Confused, Catherine shook her head, “No, of course not, Mother.”

Then she turned to her uncle. His face disgusted her. “What is it I must know?”

“You don’t know what you ask. The burden is best borne by those of us who can bear it. Your job is to marry Channing and lead a happy life with a good family. Is that too much to ask?” For a moment, his eyes pleaded, and she saw the years of care he had given to the Aster name, saw that he believed himself to be doing the right thing by her and her family. But a crazed glimmer gave her pause, and she admitted to herself what years of suspicion and distrust had been trying to teach her. This uncle, Lord Aster, had his best interests in mind, truly disguised even to himself as watching over her family.

“Share your burdens, Uncle. It is my right to know. And my brother’s as well.”

He scoffed. “Your brother wouldn’t know how to sully his hands with this. You either. Your mother is barely holding on to her small part. You all sit here enjoying the spoils of the Aster fortune while moving forward on the shadows and work of our dirty hands.”

Her mother whimpered beside her, and she wrapped an arm over her shoulders. What could possibly be so dreadful? What dark secrets did the Aster family name keep? She waited. Her uncle stared her down.

He twitched.

Her mother was the one who at last spoke. “We live on blood money. We’ve preyed for years from the lives of the very Salsburys who we profess to hate.”

Catherine sucked in her breath, looking to her uncle.

He laughed, a mirthless sound. It sent gooseflesh up her arms and down her neck. “Blood money. No one has died. Don’t sound so maudlin.”

“No one has died?” Her mother’s face blanched. “Were you not the second? Did you not carry our lifeless Frederick back to us while the Salsbury father was returned to his home?”

“That was their idiotic manner in which to deal with the situation.” He turned to Catherine. “The truth, Catherine, is that the Salsburys and the Asters have competed for years over the same piece of land in Jamaica, a sugar plantation.”

“We own a plantation?”

That same laugh chilled her. “That’s the question, now, isn’t it? Who owns it? A bit of gambling gone wrong years ago between the late great Aster and the late great Salsbury. One says they won the bit of land; the other says they did not.”

“Can we not share it?” Incredulous, she could not believe such a heated hatred could last over something so simple.

“Not when the Salsburys refuse the use of slaves.”

Horrified, she shuddered. “Slaves?”

“Yes, how does that feel, knowing your gowns were purchased with slave money?”

Of a truth, she wished to shed the very garment she wore. “And the fathers, they dueled? To the death?”

“Over a matter of sale. They at last agreed on a sale of the property, but Salsbury, he demanded we free the slaves. They came to blows, your mother was mentioned, and then a challenge was issued. They met at dawn like the idiots they both were.”

Her mother’s breaths shook with each intake.

“And we keep pestering and hurting and tormenting the Salsburys over this matter of slaves?” She couldn’t see anything at all amiss in the Salsbury behavior.

“Oh ho, their past is not the dove white you think it is. Is it?”

Her mother refused to look up.

Catherine stepped between them. “Whatever it is, I see no call for us to threaten Agatha the way Father did.”

Uncle at last looked shaken. Perhaps he had a bit of a heart after all. “I had no choice. Your father, he would stop at nothing to have your mother. It was the kindest solution.”

She fell back to her seat. Hearing of this side of her father hurt her more than she had admitted even to herself. “And now, must we continue to hurt them, to tear at their happiness? What of Penelope? Must we attack her now too? Let it go, Uncle. The plantation—”

Her uncle’s eyes turned calculating when she mentioned Penelope, and she immediately regretted her words.

He said, “If we give away the slaves, we lose everything. Your father”—he ran a hand over his mostly bald head—“he gambled away our fortune.”

“Then let it go.” She shook her head.

His face reddened further. “So naïve. The Salsburys are doing everything they can to destroy our estate.”

She turned away.

“Besides, it’s not your decision. And if it were, the Aster name would be in ruin.”

“As if it isn’t already?”

Her mother and uncle refused to look at her.

He turned from them. “There, Mildred. She knows.” He left the room, and a heavy chillness followed him. But in its place was a desolate hole, one she didn’t know how to fill. And the truth of what she realized with her Salsbury sunk deeper. No matter how kind his eyes, hope for them together had fizzled into nothing.

But perhaps she could help her brother negotiate a better agreement about this plantation; perhaps she could do something to protect Penelope. With that in mind, she hugged her mother, rocking, making plans in her mind for how to fix what she could and how to live with what she couldn’t fix. One thing for certain, she determined to make sure Penelope was out of reach of harmful speculation. They couldn’t ship her off somewhere. That was too lonely, too cruel. She closed her eyes. Perhaps instead of shunning her, they could do the opposite, throw her into society, accept and admire her in front of the ton. She considered her idea and prayed she would be brave enough that Salsbury would see what she was trying to do and forgive her.